Motivation It is our dream to understand the principles of animals' remarkable ability for adaptive motion and to transfer such abilities to a robot. Up to now, mechanisms for generation and control of stereotyped motions and adaptive motions in well-known simple environments have been formulated to some extentandsuccessfullyappliedtorobots.However, principlesofadaptationto variousenvironmentshavenotyetbeenclari?ed, andautonomousadaptation remains unsolved as a seriously di?cult problem in robotics. Apparently, the ability of animals and robots to adapt in a real world cannot be explained or realized by one single function in a control system and mechanism. That is, adaptation in motion is induced at every level from thecentralnervoussystemtothemusculoskeletalsystem.Thus, weorganized the International Symposium on Adaptive Motion in Animals and Machines(AMAM)forscientistsandengineersconcernedwithadaptation onvariouslevelstobebroughttogethertodiscussprinciplesateachleveland to investigate principles governing total systems. History AMAM started in Montreal (Canada) in August 2000. It was organized by H. Kimura (Japan), H. Witte (Germany), G. Taga (Japan), and K. Osuka (Japan), who had agreed that having a small symposium on motion control, with people from several ?elds coming together to discuss speci?c issues, was worthwhile. Those four organizing committee members determined the scope of AMAM as follows.

• Motivation It is our dream to understand the principles of animals’ remarkable ability for adaptive motion and to transfer such abilities to a robot. Up to now, mechanisms for generation and control of stereotyped motions and adaptive motions in well-known simple environments have been formulated to some extentandsuccessfullyappliedtorobots.However,principlesofadaptationto variousenvironmentshavenotyetbeenclari?ed,andautonomousadaptation remains unsolved as a seriously di?cult problem in robotics. Apparently, the ability of animals and robots to adapt in a real world cannot be explained or realized by one single function in a control system and mechanism. That is, adaptation in motion is induced at every level from thecentralnervoussystemtothemusculoskeletalsystem.Thus,weorganized the International Symposium on Adaptive Motion in Animals and Machines(AMAM)forscientistsandengineersconcernedwithadaptation onvariouslevelstobebroughttogethertodiscussprinciplesateachleveland to investigate principles governing total systems. • History AMAM started in Montreal (Canada) in August 2000. It was organized by H. Kimura (Japan), H. Witte (Germany), G. Taga (Japan), and K. Osuka (Japan), who had agreed that having a small symposium on motion control, with people from several ?elds coming together to discuss speci?c issues, was worthwhile. Those four organizing committee members determined the scope of AMAM as follows.

Robotic technology advances for a wide variety of applications Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines explores the increasing interest in real-world robotics and the surge in research and invention it has inspired. Featuring the latest advances from leading robotics labs around the globe, this book presents solutions for perennial challenges in robotics and suggests directions for future research. With applications ranging from personal services and entertainment to emergency rescue and extreme environment intervention, the groundbreaking work presented here provides a glimpse of the future.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, SAB 2006. The 35 revised full papers and 35 revised poster papers presented are organized in topical sections on the animat approach to adaptive behaviour, perception and motor control, action selection and behavioral sequences, navigation and internal world models, learning and adaptation, evolution, collective and social behaviours, applied adaptive behavior and more.

Robot Motion Control 2009 presents very recent results in robot motion and control. Forty short papers have been chosen from those presented at the sixth International Workshop on Robot Motion and Control held in Poland in June 2009. The authors of these papers have been carefully selected and represent leading institutions in this field. The following recent developments are discussed: design of trajectory planning schemes for holonomic and nonholonomic systems with optimization of energy, torque limitations and other factors, new control algorithms for industrial robots, nonholonomic systems and legged robots, different applications of robotic systems in industry and everyday life, like medicine, education, entertainment and others, multiagent systems consisting of mobile and flying robots with their applications. The book is suitable for graduate students of automation and robotics, informatics and management, mechatronics, electronics and production engineering systems as well as scientists and researchers working in these fields.

Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior